COMPOSITIONAL DEPENDENCE OF ELECTRICAL-PROPERTIES IN PLZST THIN-FILMS

The purpose of this work was to conduct a systematic study of lanthanu m doped lead zirconate stannate titanate (PLSZT) thin films with compo sitions in the antiferroelectric tetragonal (AFE(T)) and the antiferro electric orthorhombic (AFE(o)) region. The effects of varying factors such as Sn content, Zr content, etc, were studied. While the compositi ons in the AFET region demonstrate clear double hysteresis loops, ther e is always some remanent polarization when the electric field is remo ved. The remanent polarization decreases when compositions are chosen farther away from the ferroelectric-antiferroelectric phase boundary. On the other hand in the AFE(o) region all the compositions show zero remanent polarization, especially those with higher Zr content which h ave previously seldom been studied. The results also show that these h igh Zr AFEo compositions have high energy storage densities making the m suitable for energy storage applications such as decoupling capacito rs in high speed multichip modules.